Chaplin Heights or what to do when you hope for a bang and get a whimper instead

Last weekend it was finally upon us – a first, long overdue, game of 2018. As you can perhaps judge from the previous posts I was quite chuffed with the terrain, while the scenario looked (on paper at least) as the most interesting of the bunch in “Heartland” booklet… in other words I was really looking forward to it. For the game itself I decided to step back into GM role and let L. and H. duke it out while I took care of the rules and book-keeping.

While Chaplin Heights scenario gives the initial impression of being quite complex, if you study the setup it’s really pretty simple. Whoever controls majority of the seven heighs at the end of the game is the winner. Union side (that would be L.’s command) controls four of them at the start of the game, but the federal troops are pretty green. Their initial deployment is also somewhat disconcerning. Rebels on the other hand are poised for assault and get a reinforcement on Union right flank sometime after turn 3, so they have all the incentive in the world to be the agressive party at least at the outset of the game.

Both L. and H. quickly recognized those facts after inspection of the field and their lines. L. was warned in general terms about possible threat to his left flank and would be initially preoccupied with the challenge of sorting out the somewhat awkward lineup of his troops. Therefore it was hardly surprising that he assumed defensive posture to begin with. H. on the other hand decided to keep things simple – “There is the enemy, now go and kill ‘em!” seemed to be the inderlying spirit of the orders he issued at the start of the game.

Initial positions of the troops are shown in previous post, so I won’t be covering that again.

The game lasted all of three rounds. In that time, the rebels moved against enemy line, all Confederate units that were able to, did try to charge in second round… and all of them failed to get into contact. In third (and as it turned out final) round the Union line tried its damdest to shoot the rebels in front of them into pieces. L. had pretty decent return on his dice rolls, H. didn’t. All things added together, it was pretty clear that the game stalled and it would take time for H. to recover from this sharp rebuff. By that time we’ve been at it for more than three hours and I’ve made an executive decision to call it a day.

Situation at end of round three. The assault on southern right flank never got any momentum, with all regiments failing to get into contact. 6th Tennessee is in serious trouble – “Falter” status makes it unable to move, while 105th Ohio in front of it pours led into it. 6th Tennessee’s sister regiment, 9th Tennessee is in full retreat. The inexperienced 41st Georgia stands still and exchanges salvos with 123rd Illionis.  On the other side of stone wall, things don’t look much better for Donelson’s brigade. 16th Tennessee, is receiving a sharp lesson about the consequences of getting in effective range of rifled muskets even though you’re deployed in skirmish line.

Meanwhile, Steward’s brigade is trying to get out of the woods…

…and Jones’ troops are on their way toward a meeting with destiny (or at least Union brigade under colonel Harris’ command) that will never take place.

Musings after the battle

Perhaps not much of a battle, but a lot of musings nevertheless. First of all – why did I decide to call it quits when I did? After all, nothing was decided by that moment and who knows, maybe the rebels would recover? The answer is simple – time! Three rounds plus a quick and dirty rules walkthrough still required three and a half hours to complete. “Knowing my customers”, I knew that we had maximum of one more hour of playtime before the guys would leave for home and we would not achieve anything in that time. So, chances were that that final hour would be much more enjoyable if we spend it on a chat about the game and the rules… which we did!

In more general terms, let me put it bluntly – “Guns at Gettysburg” is not a quick ruleset to play, especially with players who are unfamiliar with it. And the fact that those 6mm minis can be quite fiddly to handle doesn’t help speeding things up. Those two statements bring me neatly to a conclusion I have arrived to while observing last Saturday’s game – with somewhat heavy heart I think I will have to accept the fact that large set piece battles are, at least under current conditions, not feasable as multi-player games for me. At least not with “Guns at Gettysburg”.

Please note however that I say ‘multi-player games’. So stay tuned, because we are not done with Chaplin Heights and “Guns at Gettysburg” just yet!

Chaplin Hills scenario–lull before the battle

Two days ago I was so proud of myself – ready with everything, all I needed to do was to deploy the troops on the table on the day of the battle. How hard could it be, right?

Well… Murphy was listening to my thoughts and decided to laugh in my face until morning of the battle. That would some two hours ago.

As soon as I deployed Confederate battery on their right flank, I realized that something was off with terrain setup. The battery was totally out of range, or more precisely, the hill it was deployed on was some 20cm too far back in relation with remaining terrain features. It was actually easy to explain and I had a feeling this would be an issue; my tiles are 30 x 30 cm, but the terrain map in this particular scenario is somewhat wierdly compressed in ‘depth’. Alright, time emergency adjustment – make necessary adjustments by moving some stuff forward. Problem – my tiles are still 30 x 30 cm, I needed to move stuff forward only 20 cm. Solution – demark Confederate map border with piece of red thread. Sometimes you really need to keep it simple.

Next issue appeared while deploying Union troops. As it turns out, I misread orders of battles and 4th Kentucky mixed battery turned into an infantry regiment! Problem – somewhat to my surprise, I didn’t have enough Union artillery bases for deployment of yet another 3 gun battery. Solution – scavenge couple of guns from other batteries, H. and L. will have to keep number of pieces in each battery in their heads!

Note to self – paint more Union artillery!

And so, here we are, now ready for battle for real! In case you wonder why only the Union army gets some close up attention in the pictures, the explanation is simple – see where the soffa is located.

Chaplin Hills – preview

Continuing the attempt to bump up post count for 2018!

This time around, preview of terrain for quickly approaching Chaplin Hills game. Still, troops done, terrain done… and 36 hours before actual start of the game! Must be doing something right.

Bumping up post count

After spending last couple of days on preparation for next weekend’s game, I feel I deserve to bump up the post count with this “short and sweet” troop review.

On a slightly serious note though… I’ve been experimenting for a couple of years now with how to best identify individual untis on the battlefield. Another issue I’ve been playing around with is how much information to press into those identification markers. This is my conclusion so far:

• Unit name is pretty much the only information players use during the game. Initial number of figures, unit quality and such… I get the impression that it’s either not noticed or ‘discarded’ by players while the game goes on.
• It seems to be of help to enable both sides to easily identify all units, also those of the opponent.
• Being a staunch believer in color coding, this time around I added differently colored frames to the labels. Frames identify individual brigades.
• Labels are somewhat labour-intensive, but they have an added bonus of easy identification of units in after action reports.

Pictures below show “troop review” of forces that will participate in next week’s game. It will be yet another scenario from the book that keeps on giving – “Heartland” scenario booklet from Caliver Books.

Najewitz Little Farmhouse and barn–ready for action

Seems like every single post I make here starts with “It’s been a while since the last post…”, but this time around it’s really been a while since the last post! Funnily enough not because stuff isn’t moving forward on wargaming front, mind you! The fact is that April, which didn’t even earn a single post here, was quite busy and fruitfull, thank you very much. But “real life” made it impossible for me to make any pictures and let’s face it, what’s the point posting something without pictures, right?

And so, here are finally some pictures, this time around from the finished Najewitz buildings that figured prominently and ‘in natura’ in my previous post. By now, they’re finished, painted and ready for featuring in those Chain of Command games I keep planning for.

Since those buildings are no longer available on the market, I will limit myself to saying that they’re very nice, but also very labour-intensive – couple of hours at the minimum needs to be spent on cleaning them up, glueing, sanding and filling. “Ready for deployment out of the box’ they’re not. But… once finished, they do look quite presentable and I look forward to putting them on the gaming table!

As for their preparation, they’re certainly a learning experience. I’ve cut some corners this time around and, after priming them in grey, I dealt with the interior quickly and efficiently with help of light cream paint in a spray can from Montana’s Gold product line. I’ve recently remembered about the existence of Montana and their spray cans and now I absolutely adore them. For those unfamiliar with the company, they produce spray cans for grafitti paintings. Wide range of colors, matte finish and very durable. Two coats were more than enough to paint the inside of my buildings. If you can find them, give them a try!

Exterior of the houses was painted with more traditional paints and techniques. Humbrol enamels were used on the stone barn. I tried to vary the shades of brown and do some wet-blending, but as usual I’ve chickened out in regard of palette and the end result is pretty uniform and boring. Oh well, maybe next time… The farm house was painted with… acrylic wall paint bought at local DIY shop. Perfect coverage and a whole lot cheaper than stuff from GW, Vallejo and such! I finished everything off with some Vallejo washes, just to dirt things up a bit.

Here are the promised pics, hope you’ll like them!

Najewitz french buildings, second batch–under construction

It’s middle of March, Saturday noon and outside it’s just friggin’ cold! Makes you wonder when this global warming thing arrives to Sweden! Oh well, this yet another cold snap gave me the opportunity to give some attention to another set of Najewitz 20mm buildings.

I’ve put together a the small farm building and stone barn couple of weeks ago. Now, I’ve spent almost three hours on making them presentable with help of “buckets” of filler and sanding sticks. I have to be honest, I am not a very happy bunny right now. Sure, they look quite spiffy, but the fit of individual components leaves a lot to wish for.

Anyway, here they are, ready for primer.

Painting for leisure

Some time at the end of last year I’ve grown seriously fed up with having to constantly deal with some sort of terrain projects. Trees, hedges, walls, houses – it felt like it was all that I was doing and I wanted to paint some minis again. What’s more, I also felt like painting something “different”… And I wanted to have a chance to play around with those new Scale 75 acrylics I’ve aquired at last year’s C4 exhibition.

And then I remembered… long, long time ago, I’ve bought a dozen or so miniatures from Hasslefree Miniatures. For those unfamiliar with the company, it’s a ‘one man band’ that produces some wonderful minis of wide variety. If there’s one thing they have in common, it’s not the theme, but rather the humor (often sarcastic) and wickedness of the sculpt. At least in my opinion, they are as much gaming miniatures as they are little works of art. Well worth checking out, if you’re unfamilar with the company!

Anyway… at the time I bought those minis, they were intended for a zombie project of some sort. And maybe, if I ever get there, they will be cracking some zombie sculls on the gaming table. But for now, I’m just painting them for fun. And here’s the first batch. Hope you like what you see!

Jess

Tony

Ashlee Campbell

Ray